Japanese gamers, at the very least, will soon be able to enjoy an online Phantasy Star Zero on their DS’s. The Japanese gaming mags are touting this new title as a “brand-new game that takes the series back to its online roots and offers full-on Wi-Fi multiplayer to a degree that’s never been attempted before with DS RPGs,” according to some translation work over at 1up.
The general premise of PS0 is unchanged: choosing from a variety of character types, you charge through action-RPG missions and fight bosses, either by yourself in the single-player story mode or with friends on multiplayer. The game’s in full 3D and looks beautiful, but the multiplayer mode is undoubtedly going to attract the most attention with PS0 — it allows up to four players to form a party and complete Hunter missions, either via local wireless or full-on Wi-Fi connection. Communication will be handled by word balloons, with you drawing messages on the bottom screen PictoChat-style. You’ll be able to save these monochrome word balloons for instant retrieval during battle, suggesting that players will see some serious works of art akin to the loony emoticons seen in the Phantasy Star Online games.
Phantasy Star Zero is scheduled to launch in Japan this winter. No word yet on US or European release dates.
OMG. After all the hours I burned away playing PSO, I definitely can’t wait to play this.
Phantasy Star ZERO?
Isn’t it Phantasy Star ONLINE, as in the trailblazing Dreamcast MMO???
Not PS0, but PSO!!!
This does sound good. I read about it earlier today and I am interested. I never played PS before other than the PS2 one, and never online. I know a few people that love PSO so I may end up playing online with them.
oops. one more thing @ rdaneel72, it’s not a typo, it’s being called PS0 not PSO
I stand corrected.
It is named PS0, but it plays like PSO.
You didn’t forget about the gamecube version did you. It was the only game online for it` Hope this isn’t hacked to death like the dreamcast versions`
“serious works of art”
read: penises
I just want to see a remake of Phantasy Star 4, if you ask me…
Just give us back classic Phantasy Star, Sega! It’s be Phun!
While I’d rather see something more akin to Phantasy Star 4, and the best damn console RPG ever, Phantasy Star 2, I’ll take this gladly. I love Phantasy Star, and the thought of having to scoop up a PSP to grab the latest iteration was not very appealing. Now I can play on the vastly superior DS.
What if I want to talk to my friends about other things during the game? Stopping play to write/draw will be a huge pain, even if you can have “chat macros”.
SEGA. Seriously. Nintendo has a headset for the DS. It is called the “Nintendo DS headset”. Maybe you haven’t heard about it until now. It is for talking to other people during games. I JUST THOUGHT I WOULD LET YOU KNOW IN CASE YOU WANTED TO DO THINGS THAT MAKE SENSE
Neko, I think the idea is that you draw things in your downtime, then tap them to use them while you’re playing. Voice chat would be nice, but would probably tax the DS resources significantly.
Yeah, I got that. Stock phrases aren’t exactly fun to use.
nothing is ever perfect. if it was we’d never have anything to look forward to. ive always wanted to play the online phantasy stars but never had a working online for DC or GCN but the DS works and that’s enough for me.
Cool.
This is probably going back to the original rpg series, not the online instanced stuff the Dreamcast brought forth. I love the original games.
I wouldn’t mind a Phantasy Star: Ep.1&2 remake on the Wii but with online functionality. GC version had online but you had to get the adaptor and crap, which I didn’t trouble myself with getting.